The wings were fine the way they were. I didn't need a costume. But Dylan thought differently.

He pulled out a thick, bright red Christmas sweater from my box of clothes. "Oh, this would definitely make you memorable. What do you think?"

I groaned. "This isn't funny."

Dylan laughed. "Yes it is. The look on your face is hilarious." He shoved the sweater back into the box and pushed it away. "Do you have anything under your bed?" He stuck his head under the bed and began to feel around.

"No," I answered. "Not that I know of."

"Oh really?" He asked, his voice muffled. He came back out with a brown leather jacket in his hands. "Then what's this?"

I quickly snatched it from his hands. "Don't touch it."

"What is it?" Dylan asked again.

I spread it out on the bed and tried to smooth out the wrinkles. "It was my dad's aviator jacket. He used to wear it all the time."

"Oh," Dylan said, looking down at the floor.

"Mom gave it to me after he disappeared," I continued. "It's hard to look at it so I just stowed it away." The fur lining was filled with dust. I tried to brush it off.

"Well, if it's alright for me to say it, you would look totally awesome if you used it as your costume," Dylan said.

I looked up at him. The extra warmth from the jacket would definitely help. It would be cold up in the sky, especially if I could fly fast. But it would get destroyed the second I summoned my wings, and who knew what other harm would come to it if I got in a fight. The jacket was too precious. "No."

"Why not?" Dylan whined. "It even matches the color of your wings! And it goes with the flying theme!"

"No," I said again. "I'll rip it to shreds."

"I know how to fix that!" Dylan said. He grabbed the jacket and raced out of the room before I could stop him.

"Dylan, stop!" I yelled, racing after him. I ran into the living room. Dylan had gotten hold of a pair of scissors and was cutting a huge oval out of the back of the jacket.

"No!" I yelled. I nearly tackled Dylan to the floor, shoving him away from the jacket. But I was too late. Dylan successfully held a furry oval in his hands.

I examined the huge hole in the back of my dad's aviator jacket. To say it was an oval was going to the extremes. It was more like a square, triangle, and circle fused together and put in a blender.

I blinked back a few tears. Now was no time to get emotional over a jacket. "Dylan, this is not ok," I said, deadly serious.

"Well taking out my eye wasn't ok either," Dylan said, also serious.

I shook my head at him. "Just drop your stupid eye already! I said sorry!"

Dylan shrugged and threw the cut-out onto the floor. "You cut out my eye, I cut a circle out of your beloved jacket. We can call ourselves even and forget about it."

"Good!" I said, trying to calm down before I strangled him. I looked at the jacket again. "But you could have at least tried to cut an even circle."

Dylan rolled his eye. "Yeah? Well you try to cut a perfect circle with no depth perception and horrible hand-eye coordination!"

"I thought you just said you would forget about it!"

"Would you two please stop arguing?"

I turned around. Cardinal had walked into the room at some point and was setting her backpack down at the kitchen counter.

"Why did it take you so long to get home?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "I didn't go through the bad part of town, like mom tells us to."

"We didn't either," I said.

"Oh," Cardi began to unzip her backpack. "Well, I like to stop and smell the roses."

I raised my eyebrows. "Really?"

Cardi nodded. "What were you two arguing about? Sometimes I wonder how you're even friends."

"We aren't friends," Dylan snapped, taking a step away from me. "I'm just helping him with something."

Cardi's eyes widened. "Wow..."

"We aren't friends?" I asked Dylan.

Dylan just looked at me with his one eye for a few seconds. "Let's go do the rest up on the roof," He finally said. He left the apartment before I could say anything else.

I grabbed the jacket and avoided meeting Cardi's questioning gaze. Since Dylan ruined the jacket I thought I might as well use it. Otherwise it would just sit under my bed with a huge hole.

The roof was littered with beer cans and fast-food wrappers, and a rusty old satellite dish sat in a pile of broken lawn chairs. We didn't go up to the roof often.

"If we aren't friends then why are you helping me?" I asked Dylan. I kicked a beer can on my way over to him, and it skittered across the asphalt.

"Because that means you'll owe me a favor," Dylan answered. "Then you can help me figure out what really happened to my dad."

"Oh." I didn't really know what else to say. Dylan still hated me.

"Take your shirt off," Dylan said suddenly.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

Dylan rolled his eye. "Take off your shirt and Put on the jacket."

I did as he said, although I had made the situation a lot more awkward. The jacket was a little bigger than I was used to. It would probably be more helpful than bothersome though. It's hard to move around in a thick jacket.

"Did I make the hole big enough?" Dylan asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well, bring out the wings!"

I took a deep breath and willed the wings to appear. It was a little harder than before, when I had channeled the command through fear or anger. I tensed when the wings finally did come out, I expected some kind of ripping noise as my jacket was torn to shreds. But the wings came out freely.

"Great!" Dylan said. "Now you need a mask of some sort."

"A mask?" I asked. I was done with the whole stupid dress-up act. "No."

"But then people will know who you are!"

"It'll block my vision," I said. "And I'll feel silly."

Dylan stared at me for a while and then sighed. "Alright, I guess I wouldn't know where to get one anyways. But don't come crying to me when your friends and family get hurt."

"They won't get hurt." I tried to push the idea out of my mind.

"And why's that?" Dylan asked.

"I won't make anyone hate me that much," I said.

Dylan raised his eyebrows. "Well, good luck with that."

"Are you trying to convince me not to do this or something?" I asked.

Dylan shrugged. "You're the one who doesn't want a mask,"

I sighed. "Whatever, let's keep going. What's next on your how-to-become-a-superhero checklist?"

Dylan smiled, went over to the ledge of the roof. "I want to see if you can actually fly."

I went over to Dylan and crawled up onto the ledge of the roof. I wasn't scared off heights, but that didn't make the thought of going splat against the pavement below any nicer.

"What are you waiting for?" Dylan asked.

I looked over at him. "Should we really be testing these out this way? If I can't fly I'll die."

"You got another idea?"

I looked back down at the ground far below. "Well-"

I felt a firm push on my back, and then the ledge I was standing on was no longer under my feet.
The shock of the unplanned plunge had me flailing around, panicked, and I quickly realized the ground wasn't coming up any slower.

The fear of hitting the ground snapped me out of my terror. I spread out my wings as far as they would go and felt them catch the wind like a parachute. Suddenly I wasn't falling anymore, but gliding at a slope towards the ground, unfortunately still way too fast.

I tried to pull up and soon the ground was leaving. Finally feeling safe, I tore my eyes from below- to discover I was about to slam into the side of a building.

I screamed and tilted my whole body to the left. I turned, but sharper than I expected. The wings must have been sensitive.

I flew up to the roof of my apartment and flapped in place above Dylan. The flapping almost sounded like wind chimes. I wasn't sure how to land.

"Help!" I called down. Flapping was tiring.

Dylan took a few steps back. "Get closer to the ground first."
I stopped flapping for a moment and felt myself plummet, but then started flapping again. I wasn't too far from the ground.

"Alright, now drop onto your feet," Dylan said.

I took a deep breath, folded my wings behind me, and fell. My feet hit the ground harder than I expected and I tipped forward onto my hands and knees.

Dylan clapped slowly. "That was graceful."

I stood up. "Well you didn't have to push me!"

Dylan shrugged. "You were making it boring." He looked up into the sky and grinned. "How high do you think you can go?"

"Is that a challenge?" I asked.

Dylan's grin got wider, bending his scar. "Sure."

I turned towards the edge of the building and ran. I never slowed down. I felt my feet venture into open air and I fell- but only for a moment.

I spread my wings and pulled upwards, soaring into the sky. The wind was stronger once there were no buildings to block it, making my eyes water and thankful for my jacket.

I looked down below me as I continued upward. Dylan was pumping his fist, quickly getting smaller. I could clearly see the neatly organized street grids. The cars looked like ants. Soon even the Thaddeus Corps building looked small.

I looked back up again and gasped, but it was too late to do anything. I plowed straight through a cloud. I squeezed my eyes shut as small bits of ice pelted my face.

I broke through the cloud, a little damp and cold. I looked around to see the view had changed completely. Planes and helicopters flew far below me. The sun seemed to be shining brighter up there, warming me until the wind almost didn't matter. Soon I was laughing with joy and spiraling through the air.

Maybe this whole super-hero thing wasn't such a bad idea after all.